An Office Rumour
by Nashi217
Summary: Lily is training to be an Auror. James happens to already be one... and rumours fly around the ministry faster than a Quidditch World Cup Snitch. Did YOU hear the rumour about Evans and Potter?
1. Chapter 1

**_ATTENTION ALL READERS!_**

_It has been quite a while since I have updated anything on here, and although I am sure that I owe each of you an apology, I can only offer one mass one: I'm sorry._

_This is something I've been working on for a while, and I have six chapters completed and ready to be uploaded for you all. Parts of it are stereotypical, and then parts of it are NOT canon. Don't hate for me for either of those things, and consider yourself warned. _

_This fic is told in alternating chapters varying from Lily's POV to James' POV. As of chapter 6, no one else takes the viewpoint, but I have no idea whether or not that will change. _

_I intend to update weekly, which gives me at least six weeks to write the next chapter... I sincerely hope I don't get as busy as I have been so that I can get that done for you._

_If you notice any errors, please let me know, although if it is an issue with the story that you have, I ask that you please be kind and consider that I'm working on this, my first novel, 2units at university, 2 part-time jobs, a boyfriend and having some form of life as well. So you know... not everything will be amazing. This is kind of my stress relief._

_I will attempt to reply to every review. You have my word on that until further notice._

_My other story "What REALLY happened" is discontinued until further notice. I cannot for the life of me remember where I was going with it. Sorry for any avid fans out there... but it was only 3 chapters. This fic is better in my opinion anyway. :P_

_Ok, and on that note... I am finally going to stop talking to you all and let you have a read!_

_Enjoy getting your James fic. I know I do :)_

_Thanks guys, _

_-Nashi217_

**An Office Rumor: A James and Lily Fanfic**

**Chapter One: Lily**

A small 'ding' interrupted the thoughts of a young red-head as she tried in vain to calm her thudding heart. The doors in front of her opened and another person entered the elevator with her before they were off again. People exited and entered at various stages but the young woman barely noticed. Her hands were clammy, and her breathing was shallow.

In short, Lily Evans was nervous.

Finally the 'ding' that announced her exit arrived, and Lily stepped out into the hallway whilst the eerie announcement in the lift declared that they were in the "Department of Magical Law Enforcement". Lily was followed by a man in an extremely dark green cloak who turned a corner and hurried away, muttering various spells under his breath before she was left alone again. He had taken no notice of her at all. She gulped as she heard the lift doors closing behind her and she took in her surroundings. She'd been to the ministry of magic a few times before, but every department was different, and this department was no exception.

Lily Evans was studying to be an Auror, and as part of her study, an optional one year's worth of practical training in an approved institution was allowed. She was completing her final year of theory study by owl now, because she had been accepted into the ministry to work with some of the finest witches and wizards around, including the legendary Alastor Moody, under whom she would be working directly.

Today was her first day, and despite three years of training, she felt unbelievably unprepared.

Taking a deep breath and reminding herself that she was being silly and that she had to get a move on or she would be late; she began to walk down the hall. She inquisitively read every sign and every name tag, before stopping outside one titled: "Alastor Moody: Head Auror".

Gulping and breathing in deeply, she knocked three times and then stood back waiting anxiously, having no idea what to expect.

What happened was even further from what she expected.

The door opened violently, and she found herself staring at a wand tip that was pointed directly between her eyes. She gasped in shock and went to take a step backwards before a voice boomed in her direction.

"WHO ARE YOU, AND WHAT DO YOU WANT!?" a deep, gravelly voice demanded, the occupant of which staring sternly at the trembling red-head before him.

"Uh…"

"SPEAK UP!!"

Lily gulped, and then composed herself as easily as she could.

"Are you Mr. Moody? Be- because I have an appointment with him this morning." She asked, not quite sure what to make of this strange man.

"Appointment?" a fleeting look of understanding passed across the man's face, scarred from many battles, and his electric blue, glass eye spun madly whilst he considered this information. He then proceeded to merely bark, "Evans?"

Lily sighed and inwardly smiled in relief. "Yes, that's me. I'm Lily Evans."

Moody seemed to consider her for a moment longer before stepping aside to let her in. She walked into his office carefully and studied it with intense curiosity. Were they _real_ dark detectors?

He seemed to have followed her gaze because he gruffly told her that they were, and began a simple explanation of each one. Lily tried not to smile; she already knew all of this. She'd known it since first year training, but at least Mad-Eye wasn't so scary when he was teaching. After his explanations, he regarded her sternly for a moment before opening his mouth to speak again.

"Miss Evans, firstly, welcome to the ministry. Secondly, I have to inform you that this is a strictly confidential department and anything that you see or hear must remain in your own knowledge only. I will require you to make a vow of secrecy; you don't have a problem with that I hope?" Lily shook her head. Even if she should feel inclined to tell anyone, there was no one to tell. Moody considered her before continuing.

"We maintain constant vigilance around here, and I do not want any problems. You have an excellent reference from Dumbledore, but I'm not so easily swayed, and you should know that I will be watching you very closely over the next few weeks."

There was yet another a pause in which the hardened Auror regarded her cautiously. He seemed to be studying her in every single way, and Lily felt decidedly uncomfortable again. His abrupt nature was not at all something that she was used to, and she knew it would be quite a while before she would become accustomed this man. Moody eventually continued,

"I suppose it is time to show you where we all work. You should know that you'll be training under my most active Aurors, under the title of 'junior'. You'll be working on a rotating schedule. They all report to me directly, although they have supervising members of the Law Enforcement Squad who take part in some of our more active raids, who are there for guidance and assistance when and if needed." He began as he crossed the room to the door, and held it open for Lily, who felt as if this was all happening far too quickly.

"None of the members of this team are to be underestimated. They've all completed their training and are formidable witches and wizards. " He added as an afterthought with a sideways glance.

"We have an open office plan because of the nature of our work Evans, as it requires us to often speak to each other about whatever project we're working on. There are only a few of us that have our own offices, obviously myself included, but you'll find that most people, regardless of their position, prefer to be around everyone else, getting in on the action. However, there are separate alcoves and small libraries where anyone can go to gain clarity on aspects of their missions, which you are welcome to of course, but let your supervising officer know where you are at all times. Constant vigilance, you know."

They had reached a large wooden door at the end of the department's hallway, that had no label on it at all, and Lily's brain already felt as though it would explode from all the information she'd been given. She looked towards Moody and wondered at him. He was as scarred and hard as an old tree, and he was definitely frightening, but he was a matter of curiosity more than anything else for Lily.

She faced the door as Moody pointed his wand at it and muttered some enchantments. Lily wondered to herself about the people that she was about to meet, and she felt herself growing nervous again. She'd made a few friends at training school, but hadn't been all that social, choosing to focus on her studies instead, and she hoped that she would get the chance to meet people here.

The door swung open and revealed a large room with many cubicles and desks, fireplaces for floo travel at every second desk joint, and a large table in the center of the room with a huge map of Britain laid across it. A small globe also rested there. A pin board had also been erected and it was littered with photographs of witches and wizards alike that Lily assumed were suspected Death Eaters, the main group of people that the entire Department were hunting for.

Moody walked her around the desks, explaining and introducing Lily to the team, all of whom seemed very nice. They barely had the chance to look up at her and say a brief hello before returning to their work, but the tired (yet strong) smiles she received were somewhat of a comfort.

A tentative smile had just started to appear on Lily's own face when Moody announced quite suddenly, "Oh Evans, here is the head of this particular team. Do not hesitate to contact him should you need help. James, this is Lily Evans."

Lily's heart stopped and got caught in her throat as she looked up and saw who it was that Moody was indicating.

He stood there smirking _that_ smirk and tousling up his already, and _always_ scruffy hair.

Lily gulped.

It can't be him. Not him. Anyone but him, she thought to herself whilst grimacing.

Anyone but James Potter.

_A/N: I know this one is short but they will get longer. Hope you enjoyed!_


	2. Chapter 2

**An Office Rumour**

**Chapter Two: Lily**

The rugged features of a one, James Potter were often something to talk about in the wizarding world. Things had not changed much since Hogwarts, and Lily found herself wishing that she could sink into the floor of the office and never be found again. Her faced grew hot and she realised with alarming embarrassment that she was blushing. She cleared her throat as daintily as she could, and glanced at Moody before speaking.

"Nice to meet you, Mr. Potter."

This was greeted with an intrigued and knowing smile, followed by a chuckle.

"Call me James."

Lily blushed some more, and looked at her feet, cursing whatever god out there was in charge of blood flow to the face. Moody lead her away and she didn't look at him again before they were at the other side of the room. He stood laughing with Dorcas Meadows and she noticed that even from here he seemed carefree and confident. Lily pondered on the last time she had seen him. It had been over three years ago, but she hadn't forgotten. He had been two years ahead of her at Hogwarts, and it was the 7th years' last day. Potter and his three musketeers had summoned brooms from the Quidditch sheds and had flown out of the Great Hall amidst cheers and shouts from the other students, many of whom were female and cheered extra loudly. Lily had watched the display with the righteousness of a prefect and had frowned upon the whole thing. She had looked reluctantly upwards as Potter flew over their table and he'd winked at her before shouting,

"Alright there Evans? This is your last chance now, wanna go out with me?"

Many of the girls near her had glared at her, although she had replied with a fervent shaking of her head and a determined stare in the opposite direction to the scruffy-haired boy on the broom. He had laughed merrily and flown out of the doors behind Black and Lupin, leaving a trail of red and gold sparks behind.

She had hated him. Well no, not really, but she had hated herself for drawing his attention. If it hadn't been for her stupid behaviour earlier that year when he'd been picking on Severus, she never would have attracted his attention in the first place. And boy had she. She'd yelled at him publically and called him an arrogant, bullying toe-rag in her rage. She was mad at him for bullying Severus, but having the position of Prefect meant that her rage carried on to a whole new level, and unfortunately for him (and for her) James Potter stood for everything that Prefects stood against. Therefore, as a Prefect, she had scolded him. As though merely because she was assigned the role of keeping the peace, that entitled her to yell at him and call him names in front of half the school! She must have been crazy, fifth years just didn't yell at seventh years, and certainly not the most well-known boy in seventh year, let alone the whole school. She'd felt like a prize idiot afterwards, but there was nothing she could do about it. He hadn't had a clue who she was, nor had either of them cared about the other before that afternoon, but then, well everything had changed. He'd sought out her name from other students, and from that point on, had never ceased to come up to her in the hallways and ask her to go out with him in front of as many people as was possible. It was as though he were trying to bring the same level of embarrassment back on to her. They became the entertainment of Hogwarts, and until his departure, Lily had hated every moment of it, and therefore, by association, him. She'd loathed him, and it had been so simple as well. She'd known that he was just trying to rile her up, and on many occasions he was very successful, which made her hate him even more, and then when she'd snap and yell at him, he'd cheer and high-five his friends as though he'd achieved something great, but it didn't make the situation any better. It was a horrible, horrible cycle, and when he'd flown out of the great hall that last day, his laughter echoing around in her mind and _that_ smirk filling her vision, she'd heaved a deep sigh of relief, thinking that she'd never have to see him again.

And now she was going to be working under him.

She sighed in resigned defeat. What on earth was she going to do? She had no idea how to cope with it. She'd tried so hard not to think about him since she'd left school, and she was genuinely hoping to make a new start at this new job at the ministry, and yet Potter had to go and ruin that as well.

Lily looked up reluctantly from the desk she had been assigned by Moody only moments ago to see James dictating to a quick quotes quill as he rifled through some documents that he'd just been owled. Maybe there was a chance that he didn't remember her, she thought to herself suddenly. Maybe she could still start all over. After all, it had been three years, and it's not like she was that big a deal to him. Right?

Lily crossed her fingers and resolved to treat the situation with the utmost maturity, and level headedness. She would pretend like she couldn't remember who he was (which really, was very possible she reasoned with herself) and then hopefully the whole situation could be avoided.

She returned to her work and began sorting through the files she'd been given, happily pushing the somewhat irritating and uncomfortable thoughts of James Potter into the dark recesses of her mind, where they belonged, only blushing occasionally as one or two of them would sneak back in. At one point, a particularly bad memory of him singing a self-written sonnet about the colour of her eyes in the middle of the charms corridor came back to her and she shook her head and closed said eyes in a vain attempt to quell the thoughts. It appeared that although she had decided to pretend like she couldn't remember him, her mind had other ideas. Thinking that focusing on her work would assist her, she got up and walked quickly past Potter's desk, nodding stiffly in his direction as she felt his gaze follow her on her way over to where Emmaline Vance was seated. Once there, she got Emmaline to briefly re-explain the structure of the files she was working on, and found that she was able to successfully keep her mind on the job. After all, Potter hadn't said anything as she had walked past. He probably didn't remember her at all, and she would be able to totally focus on learning things and developing her career during her time at the ministry.

A few minutes later, Lily left Vance's desk and headed back to her own, smiling slightly and totally immersed in her work. She sat down and took out a quill before she noticed the piece of folded parchment on her desk. Curiously, she looked at it. It had been folded magically so that it resembled the shape of a lily. She picked it up and unfolded it gently, a slow, sinking feeling beginning to spread through her stomach.

Written on the parchment were the words, _"Wanna go out with me?"_

Lily closed her eyes for the briefest of moments before raising her gaze to look at Potter who sat in her line of vision a few metres away. He was leaning back in his chair, his feet up on the desk. He winked at her and raised his eyebrows, glancing at the parchment in her hand. With a slight pursing of her lips, Lily picked up her wand and set fire to the unfolded lily in response to his unanswered question. Her eyes never left his, and she felt that feeling of dread come back again as he smirked at her.

Oh yeah, she thought to herself. He remembered alright.

* * *

_A/N: Thank you so much for all the very positive feedback that I've received in the last week for this story, already nearly 400 people have read it! So thank you all so much! I hope that you enjoyed this chapter as much as you all seemed to enjoy the first._

_A few points to (ahem) 'point' out though: _

_1. I recognise that the whole 'flying around on broomsticks on their last day of school' thing is sort of stolen from the Weasley twins, and I mean no disrespect... but honestly, that scene is one of my favourites from all seven books... so I just borrowed it here in tribute. I know it's not original, but it was awesome when Fred and George did it, and I hope that you can all forgive me for stealing that from them briefly in this fic._

_2. The next chapter is almost a thousand words longer than this one, so do not despair if the length is too short for you, they will pick up, I promise. _

_3. Of the (almost) 400 people that have read this fic, only 9 of them reviewed. I am not a review junkie, I do not depend upon them to write, and I certainly will not withhold chapters if I don't get them... but given those statistics, I would like to send out a very special thank you to those 9 people: Meh :), Autumn Embers, WhiteCamellia, black16lily, human being, blahblahblah 43, firewalker32, Sophstar and Akt5us... you guys totally made my week. Thank you :) It is so nice to know what people think, even if it's just one or two words._

_Thanks again everyone, I'll update again this time next week! _

_-Nashi_


	3. Chapter 3

_A/N: Hi All! :D_

_Thanks you yet again for all the positive feedback I've gotten over the past week with yet more 'favourites' and 'reviews' and 'alerts'. It's really lovely to know that people are reading my story, but also that they like it._

_I've now had over a thousand hits to this fic, which is one of the most exciting things ever, so I hope this chapter meets all your expectations!_

_A few points of call:  
1) I've had a few people commenting on the fact that they don't want James to be a prick or Lily to be a prude. I appreciate and accept these remarks, and I will endeavour to make sure that they don't become either of those things HOWEVER... James IS a prankster by nature, and as such, some of his actions will always be a little capricious. It's who he is. Lily is not a prude, and I will not portray her that way, however she is less extroverted than James, and is in a new environment in this fic, where she's not about to go out of her way to be 'out-there' and boisterous. She has a good impression to make. Imagine if you were starting a new job, related to your chosen career... you'd be cautious too. Also, I understand that I've portrayed them as being older, and therefore they should be more mature and less involved in their highschool feelings for each other... except that... that takes some of the fun out of the story. So yes, they're more mature in the sense that there will be NO angst in this story, they are neither of them virgins or obsessed with 'yule balls' or whatever, but they are immature in the sense that they still harbour the same feeling about each other that they did in high school, otherwise... where would this fic go? I'm sorry if that upsets some people, and I appreciate where you're all coming from, and the same things annoy me in certain fics as well, but yeah. That's my defense. I will do my best to make it as mature as possible, and as plausible as possible, and they will not be 'Prick and Prude', but they will still be the same James and Lily that we all know and love (to an extent)._

_2) Thank you again to all the people that reviewed! 21 reviews for the second chapter means 21 smiles that were put on my face :) I appreciate all the advice, comments, encouragement, and constructive criticism. Honestly, no matter what you write, I respect it and am grateful for it. A special thanks to those that reviewed both chapters :)_

_3) This chapter is slightly longer, and written from James POV, so I hope you all enjoy this week's James 'fix'. :) _

_Without further ado (and sorry for rambling... I'll try to do less of it in future) here is Chapter Three!-_

_Thanks so much for reading guys. - Nashi  
_

**An Office Rumor**

**Chapter Three: James**

"_James, this is Lily Evans."_

Mad-eye's words reverberated around James' head as he glanced over his shoulder to continue to watch Evans be shown around the office, Moody introducing her to people as he went. He grinned a little to himself as she glanced up at him and promptly blushed. She hid her face behind her hair as she ducked her head and James pushed his hands further into his pockets and looked around quickly, trying to seem nonchalant, before returning his gaze to the red-head on the other side of the room.

_Lily Evans. _

He thought he'd never hear that name again. And yet here she was, right under his nose. And Moody's voice wouldn't leave his mind.

_Lily Evans. Lily Evans. Lily Evans. James, this is Lily Evans._

He let a small smirk slip back onto his face as he watched her again; a sense of mischief filling his veins in a way that it hadn't done for years. Watching the red-head comb her fingers through her hair brought back all kinds of memories, and as he studied her movements across the room, his smirk widened. She was nervous, and he loved it.

"…and then I fell pregnant to a Hippogriff." James snapped his head back around to look at Dorcas Meadows who had been talking to him.

"What!?" he sputtered as he stared at her in shock. To his surprise, she threw back her head and laughed.

"I thought that might get your attention." She chuckled as she watched his face as what she'd said sunk in.

"Ha. Ha. Very funny Meadows." He sent a half-hearted scowl in her direction before he began chuckling along with her.

"Where in Merlin's name were you anyway?" she asked him. "Your head seemed a million miles away." James shrugged noncommittally and risked a guilty glance over his shoulder at Lily, who was now seated at her desk and flicking through some documents that Emmaline Vance had just given her.

"Ahh…" Dorcas nodded at him in understanding. "Yes, she came quite highly recommended by Dumbledore I hear." She studied him before continuing. "Head Girl, top marks in all her classes, especially charms and potions. In fact, I hear that she got the best marks in charms that Hogwarts has ever seen, apart from Flitwick himself of course," James looked at her incredulously.

"Surely you mean just in her year level." He asked.

"Nope. Best ever. Or at least in the last one hundred years anyway."

"So you mean…."

"Yes James. She topped you." James spun and fixed the red-head with a mixed look of disbelief and respect. Dorcas continued to watch him with a small smile on her face. "And, uh… she's quite a looker hey?" Without even realizing, James nodded in agreement, still watching Lily. Dorcas shook her head in amusement as James was now blatantly ignoring her to ogle Lily, and she walked away laughing quietly to herself at her friend's antics.

What Dorcas didn't know, was that James well and truly already knew Lily was 'a looker'. He'd known that since the first moment he'd laid eyes on her. Yet unfortunately, in that moment, the fact that she was good looking was over ridden by the fact that she had been simultaneously humiliating James in public, and standing up for Slytherin's slimy scum-bag, _Snivellus_ Snape. In that moment, in his immaturity and his humiliation, her enrapturing looks had taken a definite back seat, and she became an irritable itch that had forced it's way into the pants of his otherwise flawless reputation as being... well.... the 'cream of the crop'. No one stood up to 17 year old James Potter.

He'd forced the embarrassment back on her by asking her out in public, (often in very loud tones, or shouting at her down corridors) the next several times he'd seen her, and although that helped get rid of the itch, it created more problems. He found it very hard to ignore the fact that she was the single, most attractive girl he thought he'd seen at Hogwarts, or perhaps in his life. It was not long after that incident, as he was terrorizing her whenever he chanced upon her form in the corridors, that he began to realize that it wasn't really chance at all. He had actually started to _look_ for her in the hallways. It was then that he developed a bit of an infatuation. Nothing too serious, he had reasoned. He just became infatuated with her. With finding her, with embarrassing her and most of all, with riling her up. As he discovered the very first time he'd gotten into a spat with her after serenading her the entire walk from her Charms class to the Great Hall, Lily was gorgeous when she got passionate about anything. Her eyes shone, her cheeks flushed, and her face would practically glow with the overwhelming emotions inside her. Unfortunately for James, the only thing he knew how to get her passionate about, at that time, was being frustrated at him. So he became infatuated with trying to rile her up, so that he could watch, enraptured when she exploded at him, frustrated and angry beyond belief. And all he could do would be to stand there watching her, smiling (read: smirking) which (to his not so secret delight) would infuriate her more. The Marauders gladly joined in on this quest, as any form of public embarrassment was right up there on the Marauder to-do list, just after pranking, and James relished in his "Lily- time" all throughout his final year.

And then something had started to change.

When he'd ask her out, he'd start to get nervous before the question even made its way out of his mouth. The wait between uttering the words, and her response, became tense, and he usually found himself holding his breath. The anxiety ate away at him. And as he'd look for her in the corridors, his stomach would jump every time he'd see a flash of red hair, and his hand would fly up to his own jet-black locks and mess them up of its own accord. He found himself day dreaming about new and different ways to ask her out, and things to say to her. He'd scribble down sonnets about her hair and eyes on the edges of parchment, or text books, intending to recite them to her in the middle of the common room, but then when he realized the words were flowing far too easily he'd tear them up and toss them into the fire, running his hands through his hair and over his face in distress and confusion. His fellow three Marauders began to notice it as well. James was distracted all the time, and was never quite as involved with a prank unless it had some mention of Lily in it somewhere.

James remembered the day that it had really hit him. He'd been half-heartedly studying for a transfiguration test when his mind had drifted (of course) to Lily Evans. He'd stopped working all together to focus on thinking about how he was next going to ask her out when he realized with a jolt that this fantasy hadn't ended with her saying 'no' and storming off as she always did. This fantasy had ended with her saying 'yes' and smiling at him as he'd seen her do at so many of her other friends (of which, he wasn't one) and classmates. But not only had he realized that… he'd also realized that he _liked_ the idea of her saying 'yes'. In fact, he liked it so much that he had started smiling stupidly to himself as he sat there in the library, his eyes glazed over and his quill dripping ink on his transfiguration text book. Remus had glanced up at him as the soft dripping of the ink had caught the attention of his over-sensitive werewolf ears and he nudged Sirius. They both stared at James as his smile grew and they looked at each other, Remus' expression amused, Sirius' concerned. "Lily" they both muttered at the same time. This caused Peter's head to snap up and look at James as well, as he suddenly came to, messed up his hair and glanced around frantically. "Where?" he hissed. Remus had chuckled and returned to his book.

"Nowhere Prongs, relax." James turned to Sirius, a puzzled look on his face, wanting an explanation. Sirius had sighed deeply and regarded his friend with a cautious and calculating look.

"Prongs… when are you going to admit that you like her mate?" Sirius said, although the idea clearly made him uncomfortable. "It's obvious to all of us, so you must have some clue." James stopped and thought. Did he like Lily? Did he _like _Lily? With sudden and startling clarity he realized that he did. A little too much.

James Potter… had a crush.

He felt an expression of confused disgust come across his features as the marauder side of him digested this monogamously implicit information.

"My thoughts exactly." Sirius had said, watching his face. James had been left with no idea what to do.

Weeks later, James still hadn't acted. It was his final day at Hogwarts and the Marauders were preparing for their final prank, and their final farewell. James stood just outside the broom-shed, staring glumly at the distant trees of the forest as he tried to decide on a course of action, and found himself drawing a blank, yet again. Lily Evans was a conundrum that James had no solution for.

"Cheer up Prongs." said Remus, clapping him on the back as he exited the shed. Sirius had said nothing, but had clapped him on the back the same way that Remus had done, while Peter had given him a look of deepest sympathy. James sighed deeply and mounted his broom alongside the others, mentally shaking himself free of the image of Lily's face.

The Marauders had looked at each other once, with identical grins on their faces, before they'd kicked off from the grass and flown into the air, in the direction of the castle, whooping loudly and shooting sparks at each other.

They flew jovially into the Great Hall, Sirius having flung the doors wide open with a wave of his wand. They set to work immediately, causing as much havoc as was possible. Sirius, with a devilish glint in his grey eyes, flew towards the Slytherin table and with quick swipes of his wand, made the food from their plates fly upwards into all the Slytherins' faces. It looked as though they were being attacked by their dinner, and Sirius' hearty bellows of laugher were echoed by those seated at the Gryffindor table across the room.

Remus flew high up in the air above all the tables and with a lazy flick of his wand, sent a giant, gold arch soaring behind him like a blazing rainbow of fire. Many occupants of the tables oohed and ahhed appreciatively.

James showed off his Quidditch skills, happily soaring high and fast around the tables, turning sharply and flipping mid-air, grinning at the impressed gasps from the females seated below him. He had then dived quickly and rescued Peter's wand that had fallen out of his hand as he had attempted a complicated wibble that was probably supposed to conjure up something impressive, but only succeeded in putting a very sheepish expression on his face as he retrieved his wand from James who winked at him as he flew by. James had then decided that this was his last and final chance. With a deep breath and a jolt in his stomach that had nothing to do with the turn he made to fly back over to the Gryffindor table, he headed to where Lily was sitting. If she still refused him, he had thought, then he'd give up. That would be it, and he'd forget about her.

"Alright there Evans?" he called as he hovered above her, the golden hue from Remus' arch shining down on him. She had blushed, but refused to look at him, or even acknowledge his presence. "This is your last chance now." He persisted, although that sentence was as much to him as it was to her.

"Wanna go out with me?"

James had felt the familiar swooping sensation in his stomach as his breath caught in his throat and he had waited. Waited for her to look at him, for her to speak… for anything. _Come on_… he silently willed her. Then she slowly shook her head back and forth and looked determinedly in the opposite direction. James glanced up and saw Remus looking at him, and he knew that he'd heard every word, and that Remus at least would understand. James had thrown back his head and laughed with as much gusto as he could, before setting off a particularly large set off sparks. Then, the four Marauders had flown out of the Great Hall and out over the grounds of Hogwarts for the last time.

True to his word, James thought, now sitting at his desk and trying to focus on the work in front of him, he'd never thought of her since. Until now of course. Admittedly all of the girls he'd dated since had been red-heads, or at least they'd had auburn shades through their locks… but that was all that had changed. And really, he reasoned with himself, that could all have been coincidence. Red-heads were attractive after all, that wasn't his fault. He flicked his eyes up and watched as Lily absentmindedly tossed her hair over her shoulder and the various shades of red in it caught the light and made James' stomach do back flips. Mentally telling himself to get a grip, he cleared his throat and studied the pages in front of him, without really looking at them at all. Green eyes were also fairly common, he continued to reason. So the fact that every girl since Lily had, had them as well was also, purely coincidence. As Lily glanced up at him and met his eye, he took in every speck of emerald before she lowered her gaze once more and mentally cursed himself for never having been able to remember the exact shade of green that he clearly saw they were now. _That's because there is no other shade of green like Lily's eyes_, said a small voice in the back of James' mind. Wondering where his balls had gotten to as he digested these flowery and poetic thoughts, James sighed and rubbed his hands over his face tiredly. Who was he kidding? He'd been trying to find Lily in every girl that he'd dated since Hogwarts. His little infatuation had grown into a full blown obsession, the object of which was now sitting in front of him, having happened to fall right back into the middle of his life again.

With a sickening feeling in his stomach, he wondered if maybe she'd forgotten him. For the next fifteen painstakingly slow minutes, he continued to subtly watch her as she worked and was thrilled to notice that her eyes darted up to him, and her face grew red more and more frequently. Then, when she stood up and walked past him to where Emmaline Vance was sitting, and wasn't able to make eye contact with him as she passed his desk, he knew for sure. She remembered.

He grinned and whipped out a fresh piece of parchment and wrote the same question he'd been asking her for years in his slightly messy penmanship before charming it to fold itself so that it resembled a lily. He then levitated it onto her desk before she could return. He sat there anxiously waiting, tapping his desk and trying to ignore the curious looks that Dorcas Meadows was giving him, as she'd noticed the whole thing. He finally stuck his tongue out at her in an effort to stop her trying to get his attention and grinned childishly at her, waggling his eyebrows as Lily came back to her desk.

Lily sat down and didn't notice the parchment for a few moments, but when she did, she looked at it with an expression of complete bewilderment on her face that James found delightfully cute. He grinned further and leaned back, folding his hands behind his head and putting his heels up on the desk, so as to better appreciate the show. Lily opened the parchment slowly and as she read what he'd written, her face flushed and her lips pursed together. She lifted her face and looked James directly in the eye. Although his heart was pounding away in his chest like a mad thing, James kept his face void of anything except his smile. He then winked at her and raised his eyebrows, whilst looking pointedly at the parchment which held the question that he was waiting for an answer to. Lily's lips pursed together ever-so-slightly more, and a familiar glint flitted across her face. She then pointed her wand at the parchment which promptly burst into flame and disintegrated into ash within the space of a few seconds. Never breaking eye contact, she swept the remains into her dustbin. The message couldn't have been clearer, but James couldn't stop grinning. Because the only thing floating across his mind was:

_James Potter is back in the game. _


	4. Chapter 4

_Hi all, _

_Sorry that this is a day late, and sorry that I defended myself so vigorously in the last update in terms of the Lily/James, Prude/Prick comments. I re-read it and decided I was a little snappish, and I totally didn't mean to be, so sorry. I think I must have frightened off a few reviewers as well because the story has now had over 2,200 hits and yet the review count is still in the 40's. I'm so sorry everyone! I assure you I'm not a b*tch, just very defensive... _

_Anyway, aside from all that I have not much else to say other than that I'm moving house over the next three weeks so if there are tiny delays in updates please bear with me, I'll be doing my best I promise. All should be under control by the 25th April. And hopefully there will be NO delays, but just in case... yeah._

_Happy Easter to those who celebrate it! And I hope you all enjoy this chapter :)_

_AND A HUGE THANK YOU TO THE LOYAL READERS WHO HAVE STUCK WITH ME FROM THE START, AND WHO CONTINUE TO REVIEW EVERY WEEK. YOU GUYS ARE THE BEST!_

_-Nashi217_

**An Office Rumor**

**Chapter Four: Lily**

Lily found herself thoroughly enjoying working at the Ministry of Magic over the next few weeks, despite the unpleasantness that was James Potter. She enjoyed working with almost all of the people in the department, and had struck up a few tentative friendships, which made life far easier.

Emmeline Vance, although fairly quiet, was always very helpful and enjoyed talking to Lily about charm-work, and had been ecstatic to hear that Lily had gotten one of the best marks in charms that Hogwarts had ever seen. Lily wasn't quite sure how this information had gotten out (as she was reluctant to talk about her marks for fear of seeming arrogant) but was pleased to hear that Emmeline had been top of her year as well, and as a result, the two could often be found with their heads buried together at lunch, discussing magical theory and how charms might benefit them in the workplace.

Lily also rather liked Dorcas Meadowes, who was far more outspoken than Vance, but was also one of the funniest people that Lily had ever met. She was carefree, honest and very welcoming.

Benjy Fenwick was an enthusiastic kind of guy, and Lily found herself being strongly reminded of a child in an adult's body whenever she was around him. However, his kindness and genuine interest in Lily meant that she liked him right away, and she would often approach him whenever she had more administrative problems in the office.

Moody continued to be as intimidating as ever. Lily grew to like him, but found working with him a challenge as she often became flustered around him, and would find herself blushing profusely. Potter seemed to always find this quite amusing and would hide a smirk beneath his hand as Lily would grow more red, thinking about James.

Actually, James was the only thing about work that she didn't like. The rest of her time was challenging, interesting, tense, tiring but immensely satisfying. James Potter… was not. He was irritating, frustrating, confusing, embarrassing and worst of all…. He always seemed to be there! His desk was opposite hers in the office, although they were separated by a considerable amount of floor space, which was part of a sort of walk way around the office. Yet, as there was nothing but space and air between them, whenever she'd look up, he'd be there. Five or so meters away, facing her, and more often than not, looking at her. She began to get used to the shade of brown that his eyes were, and the messy way that his hair stood up on his head. She saw it so many times a day that it began not to bother her. Yet it was hard to ignore the rest of him. Every morning when they'd arrive at work, he'd call out "Alright Evans?" and every evening he'd try to ask her out. It got to the point where he'd simply have to say, "Hey Evans…" before she would turn to him and retort, "Potter, the answer is still no." To which James would only smirk and reply with, "Well… you never know."

As most people had left the office by the time James would ask her out, most of the department didn't witness these acts, (for which Lily was very grateful) but the tension between the two was so obvious that they became the unofficial source of entertainment for the team during work hours. Dorcas in particular, who enjoyed a good laugh, had readily jumped at the opportunity for amusement when James' obsession had become apparent. Having been friends with James for years now, she found his predicament hilarious and Lily's reactions even more so.

Lily and James, it was fair to say, were both relatively oblivious to their surroundings. They each continued along their own paths quite happily. James- relishing in the fact that Lily had been thrown back into his life, and trying desperately to sort out his thoughts and emotions, and Lily- quietly frustrated and agitated with the fact that somehow, James Potter had made his way back into her life to torment her once more.

The actual work that Lily found herself doing was interesting as well. The aurors' main goal at that point in time, during the war, was to sort out who was a Death Eater, who was an imperiused Death Eater, and most importantly, where they were hiding. The team had various strategies for uncovering this information, and everyone had a different job to do. Lily's role was (at this point in time) to essentially be Emmeline Vance's assistant. Vance was working on uncovering who of the known Death Eaters were imperiused and who were not. Moody was all for the "catch first, question later" attitude, but had been told by "the powers that be" that a more subtle approach was needed. Lily was under the impression that Dumbledore's hand had, had a part in that decision and she was grateful for it. Due to Emmeline's excellent history in charm work and curse deflection, she had been put in charge of this particular operation, and Lily had been all too eager to help.

Dorcas and Benjy were working on the surveillance side of things, trying to uncover where the Death Eater hide-out was. Unfortunately at the moment they didn't seem to be having much luck. Every time they'd start to get a lead, something else would come up, proving it false. If truth be told, Lily was secretly happy that they hadn't been very lucky so far. That's not to say that she was in any way a supporter of Voldemort, but more that she was worried about what would happen when they did find it. Moody had announced just the other day that when they did know its whereabouts, the entire team would be called in to assist with a full-scale attack and capture. Lily was not afraid to fight, after all she was a Gryffindor, but she had never been in a situation like that before, and needless to say, the thought of it made her a little… uneasy.

James, as head of the team, over-saw everything and was also in charge of the most complicated, dangerous and important part of their attack. He was leading the search to find all the Death Eaters. His job was to discover who they were, where they worked, who they associated with and what their plans might be. He just basically had to ferret them out. If James hadn't gotten on Lily's nerves so much, she might have even said that she was impressed by this, but as the situation stood… she decidedly wasn't. James had acquired that position because he worked hard (first and foremost) but also because he was completely and utterly passionate about the cause. Moody could see all of these things and had appointed him accordingly. The bonus was that James would also always be a Marauder at heart, which meant that he had a sort of daring recklessness about him that meant he would go to almost any measures to get the job done.

He was also quite well connected.

Lily was reminded by this one day when an unexpected visitor came into the office. She remembered Sirius Black from school as being one of James' cronies, and although James had gone to almost any means to talk to her at school, she'd barely ever spoken to Black unless it was by default. It therefore came as a surprise to her when one day, a shadow was cast over her desk, and a deep, rumbling voice simply stated, "Lily Evans." She had looked up to see Sirius Black's handsome, rugged features staring down at her with a look of slightly puzzled amusement written across them. Her mouth had dropped open. "S-Sirius Black." She had responded, shocked.

"Indeed." He continued. He studied her for a moment before cocking his head to one side as he watched her, and then continued. "This is interesting." He had said.

"What is?" Lily asked him.

"Well you see Evans, I asked Miss Meadowes over there, where I might find a good friend of mine, James, and I was told that his new desk space was in this vicinity. And yet… here you are." A shadow of a smirk crossed his face. "And you are decidedly _not_ my friend James." Lily scowled, before Sirius continued. "You may remember him from Hogwarts actually. A few years your senior, messy hair, quidditch player… total git?" Lily couldn't help but smile at Black's last description of James- as she heartily agreed with it, but as she saw James enter the office over the other side of the room, she merely met Sirius' gaze and said, "Yes I vaguely recall someone like that. And James Potter sits there." She pointed at the desk opposite her before returning to her work. Sirius had chuckled quietly to himself, nodding and tipping an imaginary hat to her before turning to James' desk just in time to see the man himself striding towards it. "Prongs!" Sirius called jovially, in a tone that suggested that it was a huge surprise to see him there, and with his arms extended as though to embrace James. Potter grinned at him and messed up his already messy hair. "Padfoot! How smashing to see you dear fellow!" Sirius' bellows of laughter echoed through the office and many people looked up to see what the fuss was about. Upon seeing James and Sirius standing together, most of them went right back to their work as though this was a common occurrence. Lily, who'd never seen Sirius in the office before, continued to watch the pair, whilst pretending to do her work.

"Prongs my dear friend, how goes it?"

"Quite splendidly Padfoot old sport, and for you?"

"Oh wonderful!" They grinned like school boys and clapped each other on the back. "Moony said to tell you that he still has your shoes at his place from the other night." James nodded and waved away the information for later.

"Any news Sirius?" he asked, regarding his friend with serious eyes.

"Ah, there's always news Prongs. Somewhere, something is always happening." And he pulled out several pieces of parchment from within his cloak to give to James, who flipped through them with a grim, but eager smile on his face. Lily watched him with fascination.

"And uh… speaking of things happening…" Sirius nodded ever-so-slightly in Lily's direction and Lily felt her face grow red. James looked up at her at exactly the same time that her eyes flickered to his face and he grinned upon catching her eye. "Oh yes Padfoot, things definitely do happen everywhere. Don't you remember Lily Evans?" he asked a little louder, indicating Lily with his hand. She ducked her head.

"Oh yes." Sirius said as though he'd only just noticed her.

"Evans, this is Sirius Black. He's one of the people who so kindly helps me in my work." Sirius walked over to Lily and, smirking, lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it gently. Lily scowled and blushed anew. Sirius turned back to James. "Oh come now Prongs, I'm not just _one_ of your people, I'm the _only_ one worth mentioning!" James grinned and shrugged before turning to Lily to explain. "Sirius works for the _Daily Prophet_. He runs the column 'Black in Town'?" Lily nodded in acknowledgement. That column was well known for it's wit and daring. The journalist (previously unknown by Lily) was famous for making various anti-Voldemort comments each week. James continued, "Well you see, with all the drabble that this one here writes," Sirius looked at him in indignation. "He often gets sent some _lovely_ owls from Voldemort supporters telling him exactly where he can jam his quill. Mostly they're harmless, but we monitor them anyway, because sometimes Death Eaters get just a little too outspoken in their fan mail." Sirius grinned at James and turned back to Lily.

"We look for patterns, repeated owls from the same parts of town, etc… you'd be surprised at how many of them we've been able to pin this way." Lily looked at them both.

"Yes, but surely none of the inner-circle would waste time sending you Howlers when there are muggle-borns to kill?" she asked them. James studied her, a curious look on his face. "No. But the ones that do have time to send mail usually leave us a nice little trail to follow." Sirius nodded grimly while Lily let "Hansel and Gretel" play through her head.

"Of course, by 'us', Prongs means 'him'." He added. James shrugged.

"Can't have everyone else risking their necks can we Padfoot? And certainly not you- your female readers would murder me!" Sirius, who'd been looking at James in friendly exasperation at the idea of him taking everything on himself, smiled impishly, and then shrugged as though it meant nothing. Their conversation turned to quidditch and Lily was left sitting there thinking about how James took it upon himself to undertake the most dangerous part of the job just to keep others out of trouble. This act of kindness placed a small seed of confusion in Lily's mid-section somewhere, and try as she might, she couldn't remove it.

A loud, jubilant shout brought her back to her senses and she looked at the two young men before her, beaming at each other in glee. Sirius had just presented James with top-box tickets for the upcoming quidditch match and Lily rolled her eyes. _Of course_, she thought. James' connections would _have_ to come in handy in other ways as well.

She began to pack up her things and prepare for the floo home when Dorcas Meadowes spoke to her.

"Hey Evans, a few of us are heading down to Hogsmeade for a few drinks after work tonight, it's sort of a monthly tradition… would you like to join us? You're a part of the team now too." Her warm smile was not missed by Lily, and the red-head tentatively bit her lip as she considered the idea. Emmeline Vance smiled at her and Benjy nodded enthusiastically. James stared determinedly at his hands, folded in his lap.

"Sure." Lily said after a pause.

After all, what did she have to lose?


	5. Chapter 5

**An Office Rumor**

**Chapter Five: Lily**

All Lily could feel was pain. Intense, unending pain. And it pretty much all centered in the spots right behind her eyes, and in the pit of her nauseated stomach.

Lily Evans was hungover. Severely, horribly, and completely hungover.

Groaning, she rolled over in her bed, and (trying to ignore the terrible churning of her stomach) reached blindly for her watch on her bedside table. Feeling through the fog of her mind to see whether or not she could still speak, she feebly asked it for the time. It responded in an altogether far too cheery voice for Lily's liking. "11.40am", it trilled. Lily let out a whimper as she reached for her wand and flicked it so that the curtains opened of their own accord, allowing sharp rays of blinding light to pierce through the dark room.

What in Merlin's name had happened last night?

Lily tried desperately to search through the fog of her brain for any indication of what the night's events may have held. She came up with not much at all. Frowning slightly, she forced herself to sit up, and then to get out of bed and stumble clumsily into the bathroom. She fumbled with the taps of her shower for a while, wincing at the coldness of the tiles beneath her feet, and then, sighing happily, she got under the hot, steaming water. As the shower soothed her muscles and washed away the grime from her skin, and some of the fogginess from her brain, she started to feel somewhat better, but knew that she seriously needed some eggs and bacon before she could feel anywhere near normal. Her stomach growling at the thought of a good, greasy breakfast, she turned off the water and stepped out of the bathroom, wrapping a towel around herself as she went.

As her mind wasn't really functioning, she settled for throwing on her dressing gown rather than trying to co-ordinate an entire outfit, and she stumbled her way into the kitchen squinting as the bright sunlight reflected off the kitchen sink and into her eyes. Waving her wand lazily with one hand and stifling a yawn with the other, she went and sat at he small kitchen table and stared out the window of her third floor apartment before putting her head in her hands. The soft noises of eggs, bacon and coffee being made in the background (as a result of her wand waving) were nice on her tender ears and she found herself feeling much more relaxed and less nauseous.

Then, suddenly, a loud, very unpleasant tapping noise reached her ears and she snapped her head up frantically, hoping to find the source of the noise in order to shut it up as quickly as was possible. As it turned out, the noise was coming from an owl at her window, tapping its beak against the glass. Making fervent shushing gestures at the bird, Lily flicked her wand and the window flung open, giving the owl entrance to the room, which it happily took, and flew over to Lily, hooting loudly. Lily took the piece of parchment from the noisy thing and opened it to read. It was a brief note from Emmeline Vance.

"_Hey Lily._

_ I just wanted to check you were feeling ok… last night got a little crazy. Do you want to come over here for coffee?_

_ -Em"_

Lily looked at it and read through it twice more before its words really began to sink in. Last night….?

Then Lily vaguely began to remember. They'd gone out for drinks at The Three Broomsticks. All of them, after work. And Lily… had, had a few. She didn't remember being very, _very_ drunk, but apparently she had been, as she couldn't remember anything past the third round of honeyed-mead.

Lily picked up her quill and replied to Em's letter instantly, telling her that she would apparate there shortly, as she didn't think her stomach could handle the spinning sensation of floo travel. She then gulped down her breakfast, threw on some clothes and stepped out into the waning afternoon air, breathing deeply. She was keen to get some answers.

After she had apparated to Emmeline's house (and recovered from the compression of apparition) she strode quickly up the garden path and knocked at the door of Emmeline's small cottage. The door opened and Vance stood there smiling, although seemingly a little surprised. She invited Lily in and Lily stepped inside the door as Em closed it behind her. Lily studied Emmeline's face carefully. "What's so surprising?" she asked her host after a few minutes. Emmeline started, and then looked uncomfortable.

"I just… uh… wasn't sure whether or not you'd be alone this morning." She looked at Lily pointedly. Lily felt more confused than ever. Then, slowly, the significance of Em's words sank in.

"Oh God Em… what in Merlin's name happened last night!?" Lily began feeling faint, as she considered all the _many_ possibilities implicit as a result of what Vance had said. They seemed to flicker before her mind's eye like a strobe light, making everything seem fast, surreal and all too clear. Lily groaned involuntarily. And the worst thing? She'd been out with people from _work_. Who knew what she'd done, or who'd seen her doing it? But one thing was certain, she was sure she'd made a flobberworm of herself.

Emmeline smiled warmly in sympathy. "Come on." She said comfortingly. "Come inside and I'll make us some coffee." Lily meekly followed her friend further indoors, and then unceremoniously slumped herself at the kitchen table. Emmeline giggled and started busying herself in the kitchen, waving her wand this way and that, and the scent of freshly brewing coffee washed over Lily again, making her smile softly, and inhale deeply.

Emmeline came and sat down next to Lily with a tray of hot drinks after a few moments. "Ok so what _do_ you remember about last night?" she asked Lily. Lily screwed up her face in concentration as she tried to remember. "Not much." She admitted. Emmeline chuckled. "Well I don't think many people will remember much." She said.

"Yes…" said Lily. "But you seem to remember enough to think that I wouldn't be alone this morning- what happened?" Emmeline started to look uncomfortable.

"Well even my memory is blotchy, I can only remember bits and pieces, and it eventually blacks out altogether, but-"

"But what Em!?" Lily demanded, feeling slightly hysterical.

"But… well from what I can remember, you ah… well you seemed well on the way to… ah…" she stopped and studied Lily as if she weren't quite sure how to frame what she wanted to say. "Well, have a look for yourself." She said eventually, heading over to a brown cabinet in the corner of the room. She pulled out a pensieve and brought it to the table. "My memories are probably quite damaged from last night, and they're incomplete, as I said…but here's everything I've got." She placed her wand at her temple and drew a silvery strand of thought from her mind. Lily gulped. Breathing deeply, she peered into the stone basin where Emmeline had put her memory. Stealing herself for what was in store; she bent over and plunged her face into the bowl, feeling herself fall into Emmeline's mind and back into the night before.

At first the memory began in the office, and Lily watched herself bite her lip as she considered going out with them all. Again she noticed everyone's reactions and encouragement and she smiled as she thought how lucky she was to have such friendly colleagues. From her position just behind Emmeline, she could see more of Sirius Black and was astounded at how tall he was. Taking advantage of the fact that she was invisible to all in the memory, she went and stood next to him. He was watching her memory-self with calculating eyes, which were a most peculiar shade of grey. As everyone in the office started packing up, Sirius turned abruptly to James who was still sitting at his desk, staring at his hands in his lap.

"Is this a new development to the office staff Prongs?" Sirius asked James quietly. James glanced up at Sirius once before muttering, "Relatively new, yes." Sirius growled quietly. "How relative is relatively?" James sighed.

"She's been here a few weeks."

"A few weeks!" Sirius struggled to keep his voice at a whisper as the people moved around him, and, curious, Lily leaned closer to hear him better. "Why in the name of Salazar's shorts didn't you tell us!?" James shrugged.

"I dunno Sirius, I really don't. I'm still sort of… dealing with it myself."

"Dealing with it!? Oh for Merlin's sake Prongs, you're as bad as you ever were!" Sirius then seemed to get thoroughly amused all of a sudden. "Well I guess it's a good thing that I arrived in the office this particular afternoon then isn't it?" he grinned and turned to watch Lily's memory-self who was leaving the room with Benjy. James' eyes snapped up and followed Sirius' gaze. "Why?" he asked warily. Sirius' grin got bigger as he turned back to his friend. "Oh… no reason." He said airily. James jumped up and scowled. "Padfoot, don't you-"

"Tut, tut Prongsie. Watch that temper." James fumed some more. "I'm not going to do anything of consequence, certainly nothing that will affect you… you don't even like the girl do you? You spent most of seventh year convincing us of _that_." James cringed and looked sheepish for a moment. "Hmmm…" said Sirius thoughtfully, watching his friend struggle with his feelings. "Of course, that's not to say that _I_ never liked her…" James looked up at Sirius once more. Lily, watching the whole thing, suddenly felt very confused and shocked as she turned to study Sirius' face carefully. He continued slowly. "I mean, she is quite a looker…" James' expression turned dark and a low growl escaped him. Lily felt her mouth open and an incredulous look fell onto her face. Sirius Black? She thought he didn't even know who she was! Sirius looked back towards where her memory-self had just left the room. "I mean maybe I could just…" Lily frowned as the rest of what he said became mumbled and her surroundings became blurred. After a few moments of confusion, she realized that it must have been because Emmeline had already left the room, but the memory stayed blurred and all Lily could see were random shapes, until a few moments later it suddenly became clear as day again. However, their setting had changed.

They were now seated in the Three Broomsticks, and it was clear that both she and Emmeline had, had a few drinks. They were giggling profusely at Dorcas who was sniggering as she told a joke. James and Sirius were at the bar, and they appeared to be having a fairly heated discussion. Lily, curiosity overwhelming her, had just decided to go and see what they were talking about when Sirius clapped James on the back and walked over towards the group with a tray of firewhiskeys in his hand, their conversation clearly over. James followed him with a scowl.

"Firewhiskeys everyone! Come on, come on! Everyone drink up!" Sirius began handing them out, and Lily watched her memory-self look at the glasses dubiously. "You too Evans." Sirius said, smiling mischievously at her. She'd sighed, shrugged and downed the drink in one. Sirius chuckled. "That's my girl!" James' scowl got darker as he pushed in front of Sirius and sat himself down next to Lily, glaring at him profusely whilst sipping on his drink. Lily shuffled her position in the memory so that she was sitting where her memory self was. It was a severely bizarre feeling, as her arms would move about and she'd turn and face other people of her own accord, as her memory-self, yet the present time Lily just sat there watching everything happen around her.

She found herself studying James more than anyone, as he was seated beside her. Her memory-self was paying him little to no attention, but present time Lily couldn't help but watch him as he watched her. His eyes followed her every move and a small, crooked smile appeared on his face and his eyes gradually lit up. Lily was quite taken aback at the softness in his expression. She chanced a glance at Sirius who was regarding his friend with a triumphant look on his face. This puzzled Lily for a moment, but she was then distracted as James' low, gravelly voice reached her ears.

"Lily…" he breathed softly. Both present time Lily and her memory-self turned to look at him, and both of them sucked in a quick breath at the expression on his face. The smile was still sitting there tentatively, but it was his eyes that stood out. They burned and smoldered fiercely as he studied her. Lily felt her memory-self exhale slowly although she was still left breathless. James cleared his throat.

"Can we… go outside for a minute?" he looked at her and Lily felt as though she couldn't move, and she wasn't sure she wanted to. Then, slowly, he reached up as he studied her features and brushed a finger across her cheek, tucking a stray piece of hair behind her ear. In that moment, Lily felt herself come undone, and felt the faintest memory of his touch lingering on her skin, and tingling. Present time Lily and James waited with baited breath for her memory-self to respond.

"Sure." She breathed softly.

And then Emmeline's memory went blank.


	6. Chapter 6

_**A/N:**__ To my dearest and most amazing readers. I beg your forgiveness. I prostrate myself before you and pray that you will not hate or flame me for the lack of contact over the past several months. I know, I know… I am a crappy updater. BUT the truth is that there were a lot of circumstances that were out of my control. I won't bore you with them, as no doubt to you all, an excuse is an excuse no matter how true… but I can assure you that I have very legitimate reasons for not having updated before now._

_However, behold! A chapter. I am now somewhat settled once more, and though I have moved countries from Australia to Scotland, I have much more regular access to the internet and far more inspiring surroundings- hopefully both these things will mean more updates for you all._

_As it HAS been a while, may I recommend you begin reading this fic from the beginning again, just so that the events of chapter five are fresh in your mind when you read this one, and I assure you that chapter seven is pretty much good to go, it just needs editing. So you should get it very soon._

_Thank you, thank you, thank you for staying with me, and especially to RTK whose concern prompted her to PM me and check that everything was ok, and that I hadn't died. You are amazing; you are all amazing… and with that final amount of groveling, I give you Chapter six._

_-Nashi_

* * *

**Chapter Six**

_JAMES_

An extraordinarily loud bang wracked the ears of a one James Potter, and he groaned and mumbled incoherently where he lay. The remnants of last night's revelry were strewn around him haphazardly, yet they might as well have not been there at all, because he couldn't remember a thing.

Squinting, he peered through the haze of his hangover to take in his surroundings. It appeared that he was in Sirius' lounge room, sprawled on his sofa. Peter and Remus were there too, which surprised him as from what he recalled, they hadn't taken part in the activities of last night. Peter was curled up awkwardly on the armchair, looking uncomfortable, even in sleep. Remus was lying on the floor in front of the fireplace, on Sirius' best rug, despite the fact that the fire was now dead.

The 'bang' it appeared, had come from Sirius. He was standing in the doorway, which had swung open and smacked against the wall. Sirius looked how James felt.

That is to say – dreadful.

James groaned and lifted his hand in greeting. Sirius looked at him and repeated the gesture. Then, stretching, he waved his wand and managed to say "Sc-scourgify" whilst trying not to yawn. Half of the mess in the room disappeared and Sirius shrugged as though he had given it his best shot. With several moans and grunts, James pushed himself into a sitting position and flicked his wand at the fireplace, causing a roaring blaze to appear there, radiating waves of warmth and life back into the stale room. Peter and Remus began stirring. Sirius strode into the room and sat on the sofa beside James. "Fifi!" he bellowed after a moment, causing the other three men in the room to cover their ears and protest loudly. There was a loud crack (and another round of protests at this noise) and a small, female house elf appeared wearing a tea towel. "Yes master Sirius?" it squeaked, bowing low. Sirius rubbed his hand over his face and considered his three friends. "We're hungover Fifi, you know what to do." The elf nodded and disapparated. Said three friends began their grumbling again at the loud 'crack' of disapparation but were quieted quickly enough with a look from Sirius. He sighed and considered them all once more.

"Ok…so what happened last night?" he asked the room at large, as though this was a perfectly normal question, and indeed one that they may have heard many times before. Three blank faces stared back at him.

"What day is it?" Peter asked. Sirius groaned and put his face in his hands in frustration. Remus exhaled loudly. "Honestly Wormtail, how much _did_ you drink last night! It's Saturday." He said wearily.

Meanwhile, James' head felt numb. His memories from the night before were hazy, limited, and barely existent in the first place. He looked groggily up at Remus. "Last night…" he muttered. Sirius turned sharply to study him closely, a curious look on his face. James was clearly deep in thought as a small frown had appeared on his face. "Wait a sec… he continued, glancing up quickly at Remus and Peter. "What in the name of Merlin are you two doing here? We were out for _work_ drinks!" Remus stood up groggily and went to sit on Sirius' foot stool. "We had an order meeting at the Prewetts', Sirius owled us to let us know where you guys were. We thought we'd meet you for a nightcap or two."

"Or five." Interjected Peter.

"Or _twenty_." Agreed Sirius, grinning. James chuckled wearily.

"How did the meeting go then?" he asked.

"Fine." Replied Remus. "Of course, no one's ever really happy unless the entire order is there, but it's too impractical to have full team meetings all the time. _And_ dangerous- it's better to keep some things between certain people within the group. I have to agree with Dumbledore's decision to include the smaller update-type meetings, like last night."

"You'd agree with anything Dumbledore said." Mumbled Peter.

Sirius roared with laughter. "Remus Lupin: Dumbledore's pet wolf." Lupin scowled at him. "Wouldn't you respect someone too if they let you go to school and be around other people when no one else would?"

Sirius chuckled "Of course, of course. No need to get your wand in a knot, I'm just pointing out the amusement that could possibly be found in that image." Remus' scowl disappeared slightly, but whether that was Sirius' placating remarks, or the loud 'crack' that announced Fifi's return with food, one couldn't be sure.

Fifi staggered slightly under the huge weight of the platter she was sporting and placed it on the coffee table as carefully as she could, revealing the steaming mounds of eggs, bacon, toast, sausages and a freshly brewed pot of coffee. There were mumbles of "thank you" directed at the elf before she disapparated again, leaving the men to tuck in. James heard his stomach growl at him threateningly and never one to not take a hint, he soothed it immediately with the largest mouthful of scrambled eggs that he could muster. The other three weren't dissimilar in their approach, and for a while, the only noise that could be heard was the sound of contented munching as the Maurauders ate to their heart's happiness.

After a while, and in between mouthfuls of toast and marmalade, James repeated the earlier question of what had happened the night before. His asking of it however received quite a different response to Sirius'. The other three stopped eating and looked at him, guilty and uncertain glances sliding between the three of them. James studied this reaction curiously. "What…?" he asked slowly. Remus cleared his throat.

"Well we were sort of hoping you could tell us Prongs." He said quietly. James' brow furrowed in concentration as he considered this statement. Sirius slid his plate onto the coffee table and re-arranged himself to look at James. "What Mooney here means to say is that there are a few things that may or may not have happened last night that we are all rather intrigued about. How much exactly do you remember?" James looked at his best friend with a blank expression on his face. He searched through the vague memories of the night before and was unable to come up with anything substantial, much less anything intriguing. Then, slowly, a few dreary drips and drabs started coming back, and James felt his temper flare up.

"What did you do with Lily!" he demanded, glaring at Sirius and suddenly on his feet. Peter scuttled out of the way, a shocked look on his face and Remus looked up at James in confusion. "What did _Padfoot_ do with Lily?" he asked, incredulously.

Sirius merely rolled his eyes. "Nothing Prongs. It was all a ruse, which may eventually come back to your mind. The occurrences in question occurred well after that. Think later in the evening." James had opened his mouth to retort already but when he heard what Sirius had said he promptly closed it again, and resumed his slightly puzzled look as he trawled through his own brain again. He distinctly remembered Sirius turning up at work, and the suggestion that they all go out together for drinks. He had felt like he'd swallowed his own heart when Dorcas had asked Lily if she felt like joining them all. Waiting for her response had been painful. It was like he was the one asking her out… in a round-a-bout way, as he was going to be there too. He then remembered being astonished and furious when, just after Lily had agreed to come, his own friend, Sirius no less, had shown a small amount of interest in his Lily. For even though she wasn't his, he certainly viewed her that way. That feeling had continued all throughout the first few rounds of drinks as Sirius became more and more friendly with the lovely red-head. James had finally pulled his best friend over to the bar and confronted him, threatening him with all but death in order to get a decent and honest response. Sirius has laughed and pointed out how obvious the messy haired quidditch player's feelings for the girl were, and James, having had his bluff called… hadn't been entirely sure what to say. So he had said nothing, scowled immaturely at his best friend, and then positioned himself next to Lily once they'd returned to the table, in a further ruse to 'protect' her from Sirius. It was at this point that everything started to get a little fuzzy in his mind. James furrowed his brow further as he tried in vain to remember anything past that point.

"Go on." Sirius said, looking at him. James realized that he had been relaying these memories out loud.

"Well you see Padfoot, that's just the thing. There's nothing after that. Nothing, I can't remember a thing." Remus, Peter and Sirius exchanged glances while James buried himself in his coffee. Sitting at the table had been nice, he remembered that much. Watching Lily talk and laugh among their colleagues. He never really got to see her like that; neither at Hogwarts or in the office. He found that he liked it, quite a lot. He liked the way that her face lit up, and the way that she absentmindedly flicked back stray strands of her fiery locks when they flipped forward over her eyes and/or face. He loved the sound of her laugh, and the way that when she knew she shouldn't be laughing at something, she'd reach up and cover her giggle with one hand, hiding behind it coyly. Yes, James thought. He certainly remembered sitting next to her.

He shook his head and came back to the present where his three best friends were discussing the full context of the meeting that Remus and Peter had had with Dumbledore the night before.

"He wants to recruit more members." Said Peter, with a sideways glance at Remus who pursed his lips slightly. Remus then sighed and looked at James and Sirius respectively. "You both know that I trust Dumbledore's judgment to the end of my life… but I'm not so sure about new recruitments. It's not Dumbledore that I don't trust on this, but the general wizarding population." Sirius listened to Remus with a firm line carving its way across his face. James repositioned himself.

"The wizarding population is far less united that the Ministry would have everyone think. Dumbledore is very trusting, for which I will always be eternally grateful on a personal level, but I worry that on this particular issue, he's being _too_ trusting. There are too many spies out there. Too much information is already being leaked to enemy lines, and from Ministry departments in which we thought we knew everyone's motives. It's just… it's too risky." Remus stopped and visibly drooped. The recent happenings had already begun to take their toll in the Marauders' werewolf counterpart. Despite having been betrayed and backstabbed almost his entire life because of his condition, any new cases of deceit hurt him just as much as everyone else, if not more, because it was further confirmation to him of just how cruel his fellow humans could be.

James considered what Mooney had said and tried to formulate his own opinion. It was true that it was difficult to know who to trust. James knew this more than almost anyone, given his line of work, but still… their side needed all the help they could get. The Ministry _was_ slowly being infiltrated, and he knew that, and that it was only a matter of time before there was a leak in the MLE… but surely that was all the more reason to be recruiting now? Before things got worse? And besides, at the present point in time, James trusted every member of his small team with his life. He took a moment to think about them each in turn: Benjy, with his quiet enthusiasm; Emmaline, with her intelligence and generosity; Dorcas with her devil-may-care way of living, her loyalty and her cracking sense of humor… and Lily. Lily with her… well with her everything. James struggled to find a single quality within his favorite red-head to hold higher than all her others. He let his mind wander, and he imagined working with her beside him as a member of the Order. As a crime-fighting duo; a Death Eater defying machine! The two of them working together, living together… _being_ together. He allowed a small smile to grow across his features as he imagined them on missions. Hiding out and spying, calculating risks and debating techniques. Going out for drinks after winning a fight where he'd walk her out into the softly falling snow, turn to face her, pressing her up against the wall of the pub, and lean down towards those incredibly soft and inviting lips and…

…With a jolt James sat up straight. "Lily." He muttered, and the other three stared at him in silence.

That wasn't a fantasy, that was a memory.

"Oh f…"

"…lobberworms?" Peter suggested. Remus and Sirius stared at Peter in exasperation. James stared at the wall in front of him, the memory of Lily's lips far too close to his own than was appropriate playing again and again in his mind, to the backdrop of falling snow.

What in Merlin's name had happened on Friday night?

* * *

_A/N: Yes, yes, yes I know... I'm incredibly cruel for leaving it here AGAIN, but I promise you, the lack of information is important. Thank you all once again for reading :)_


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

LILY

_Lily sat with her head bent over the pile of documents that Emmeline Vance had just given her to sort through. The work was a little tedious and she'd let her mind wander a bit, not recognizing what time it was. Suddenly a shadow was cast over her desk, and as a warm body leant down closer to her from just behind her back, a waft of his irresistible scent swam over her- clouding her senses. Her lips parted of their own accord and she closed her eyes and breathed in deep._

_"Evans..." His voice rippled through the air, low and gravely in her ear, his lips mere centimeters from her and as she felt the intoxicating heat from his body lean gradually closer, and the slight ghost of his fingers trailing up her spine, a soft gasp escaped her. She turned her head slightly so that his lips were dangerously close to her mouth and she noted that they were parted too, as he licked them slowly and drew a ragged breath, dipping his face ever closer until-_

"Wake up! Get up! You're going to be late!"

Lily Evans gasped and flew upright in her bed. Her watch was squealing at her from her bedside table and her reflection in the mirror made her blush. Her face was flushed, her hair mussed and her eyes wide and glistening. Her chest heaved and her skin was moist with sweat, covered though it was by the bedclothes.

That was the second night in a total if two nights since seeing Em's memory that she had dreamt of James Potter. That meant she'd been dreaming about him at a rate of one hundred percent. Despite the fact that those statistics were taken from only two nights, Lily sincerely hoped that this was not a trend that would last. She did not like those odds. Particularly not if the dreams continued down the line that the one she had just woken from came from. It was all that 'being so close' to him in the memory, she reasoned, that had made her mind conjure up ridiculous ideas and scenarios like that. Scenarios where she'd been mere seconds away from-

"NO!" She yelled aloud as an attempt to distract herself. She scrambled to get out of bed. "What time is it!" she demanded of her watch.  
"Twenty minutes to nine." it replied promptly. "And you're going to be laaaaaaaaaaaaaate!" it trilled at a ridiculously inappropriate pitch for that hour of the morning.  
"Merlin's pants!" swore Lily as she put her hands over her ears and searched for her wand. Flicking it at her watch and muttering "Silencio" she then bolted into the bathroom, grabbing random items of clothing as she went and summoning her shoes.

Almost exactly thirty minutes later, flustered and panicked, Lily ran into the office as quickly as she dared, having just flooed in from the closest public fireplace. She was covered in ash, and a small cloud of grey hovered around her as tiny specks were jiggled off of her and into the air as she ran. She threw herself down at her desk and hurriedly banished her outer cloak to the nearest wardrobe, almost knocking Benjy over on her way. "Sorry!" she called out loudly, as she pulled some files towards her, and Benjy dismissed this with a mere wave of his hand. Lily had just started to breath a sigh of relief, thinking that perhaps she had gotten away with this one tardy, when a loud and sharp voice bellowed right behind her, "Evans!" Lily squealed in fright and jumped in the air before catching her breath and turning around to face Moody, somewhat sheepishly. Whilst many other members of the staff had giggled at this humorous display, Moody himself seemed devoid of any sense of humor, and merely growled at her more ferociously.

"You're late." It wasn't a question, but Lily answered the underlying demand for an explanation anyway. "Um, well yes Auror Moody, um I'm terribly sorry, but I had a few problems with my erm… floo…" she trailed off lamely and tried not to look Moody in the eye.  
"I don't accept tardiness Miss Evans." Moody stated while Lily blushed fervently and vowed to buy an extra three alarm clocks that weekend, and position them at varying points around her flat. She nodded meekly in response and cringed as he continued his very loud berating of her. "Punctuality is vital in a Department such as ours Evans, you can't be late when delivering a counter curse to your team mates, or one of them could end up dead. We practice for those scenarios here in the office by being on time for work, do I make myself clear?" Lily nodded again. Moody paused and drew breath. Never one to ramble, he ended his tirade there and got on with business.  
"We have a Department meeting in ten minutes. You are expected to attend." Lily nodded again. "And Evans?" she looked up at him. "Don't be late." Lily nodded and ducked her head her cheeks flushing as he walked off.

All in all, not a very good beginning to the morning.

Ten minutes later, Lily found herself standing in a large meeting room amongst the other members of her small team, and then the rest of the MLE department. There were many Aurors seated there that she had never seen or met before, as well as all the other witches and wizards that worked desk jobs in the Department that she didn't know, as she had been assigned to work directly with Moody and his close-knit team that took on most of the important tasks first hand. This was a result of the fact that Lily hadn't had any connections when applying for her workplace placement. One wouldn't think that this dire situation would land you a placement in one of the best teams in the Ministry, but Lily had written to her previous head of house at Hogwarts to see if she could get a reference from the school, and Professor McGonagall had done one even better than that for her and asked the Headmaster himself. It was due to her fine recommendation that Lily was fortunate enough to have been put under the direction of Moody, and his small personal team rather than shunned off into one of the other areas of the MLE to sit behind a desk and not really learn much that would be beneficial for her training. It was of course a huge bonus that Moody himself was head of the entire Auror department as well, so if anyone was going to be watching over her during her training, it was certainly a good thing that it was him- especially if she ever hoped to get a job in the department, which she certainly did. However, Lily reflected, her tardy performance this morning may have just made working under Moody a giant detriment rather than benefit as she thought about how he had chided her for her lateness. Disappointed by that memory, Lilt felt her features crease into a frown and her shoulders slumped visibly. She pulled out her notebook regardless and tried to shake those negative thoughts before a low voice that she had almost forgotten about broke through her wall of self-pity.

"Chin up Evans" James muttered softly, from his position standing directly behind her. She hadn't noticed his approach and she stiffened and started at the sound of his words.  
"Moody's had a go at each of us at some point for being late; you really shouldn't let it get to you." Lily didn't even stop to think about how this was the first 'non-joking' thing he had said to her since they started working together (well despite whatever he _may_ have said on Friday night), she was too flustered thinking about how that was the first _any_ type of thing he'd said to her since Friday night. All too aware of the fact that she had no recollection of whatever had gone on between them, and that she really didn't want to talk to him about it now (if ever) in front of a room full of people, she acknowledged him with a very slight tilt of the head, and then went to sit down in a seat a few rows in front of where they'd been standing. The meeting was about to begin after all, and as she was actually running on time to this, she thought she'd try to turn her bad, haphazard morning around by paying attention and taking notes. The only thing that she'd thought could have made her morning any worse before she got into the meeting room, was a chance encounter with the one person that she had been trying to avoid. Of course, that had been the one thing that had happened. She shook her head to clear it of his voice and pulled out her notebook and quill, keen to avoid Moody's limelight again, and to return herself to his good books, she wrote the date on the top right hand corner of the page and waited for the meeting to start.

"You seem a little bit out of order today Evans." Lily jumped about a foot in the air and promptly dropped her notebook. The scruffy haired owner of the voice that had just spoken chuckled at this, and Lily pursed her lips and tried very hard not to blush. She hadn't realized that he'd followed her and seated himself directly behind her again.  
"I- I don't know what you mean Potter." She said nonchalantly. Behind her, James raised his eyebrows.  
"Late for work, covered in ash, and a bit jumpy…?" he offered as an example. Lily felt her face redden.  
"I…uh… had a bad dream last night and um… didn't sleep well." Well she thought, that was pretty much true. It certainly hadn't been a dream she had wanted to have… and that made it bad, didn't it? Fortunately she was saved from his response as Moody walked in at that moment flanked by the deputy head of the MLE, Barty Crouch. They walked to the front of the room and waited for silence before going ahead.

"Good morning." Began Mr Crouch; a young man with a crisp voice and attitude, which matched his crisp robes and slick hairline. "Many of you are aware of why we are all here, but for the records, we shall state our business formally." Lily noticed the quill hovering behind Crouch, taking down his dictation as he spoke. She had barely a second to admire the charm work however, before Crouch had begun speaking again.  
"Since the last time we were all present in this room, various developments have come to the floor in our Auror department; led by my colleague Alastor Moody. He has had his team working tirelessly, and the information that we now have available is a direct result of those efforts and every member of his team is to be commended." There was a brief smattering of applause, which wasn't very enthusiastic because Crouch had still yet to tell them all exactly what it was that Moody's team had done. Lily glanced around quickly at her co-workers to see if they had any idea what it was, as she certainly had little to no idea, before Crouch started talking again.  
"Mr Moody and his team have managed to successfully locate a confirmed, official Death Eater hide out." There was a collective murmuring of approval in impressed tones from many of the people on the room, and Lily craned her neck to look at Benjy who was flushed bright red, but returned her smile none-the–less. Grinning, Lily gave him a thumbs up before returning her attention to the front.  
"The wizarding world is indeed in debt to Auror Moody and his team, and we, as the Magical Law Enforcement will be standing behind them all the way. That is the official statement that any member of this department is to give to the press should they be questioned, and we will not tolerate any confusion on this matter. United and strong is the only way that we can hope to defeat those dark forced that threaten us, and as this department is the very embodiment of the resistance, we must remain both of those things: united, and strong." Crouch paused for breath and Lily could see that almost everyone in the room sat a little straighter and was paying just a little bit more attention after his little tirade. Moody stood silently to Crouch's left, surveying the crowd.  
"Naturally this information will not lie idle as we wait for our enemies to defeat us." Continued Crouch. "We, that is to say, Auror Moody and I, have created what we believe is a solid plan of attack in which the information we glean from carefully monitored surveillance and study of this so-called hide out will be leaned upon heavily in order to ensure the utmost safety and security for those embarking on it. This will be put into effect as soon as we deem it both safe enough, and when we have decided that all the information that can be taken from this discovery, has indeed been obtained. You will all be notified of the results of this operation upon its completion." This was spoken with a tone of such finality that the silence that followed seemed to hover over everyone for a few seconds. Crouch cleared his throat and shuffled through a few of his notes, and seemed about to change subjects when a voice in the back of the room spoke up, loudly.  
"Well are we going to be able to know what this so-called attack is going to entail? If we are indeed questioned by the press, we're going to need to be able to tell them more than just 'United we stand.' And all that nonsense." There was a sharp intake of breath in the vicinity behind Lily where she knew James was sitting, and she saw that Moody has both his eyes fixed determinedly on the area where the voice had come from. There was no obvious change in Crouch's demeanor, but Lily noticed that when he spoke, his voice was harsher than normal, and his eyes had narrowed ever-so-slightly.  
"The surveillance roster will be posted in an area that is public, however the final 'plan of attack' as it were, will not be completed until the surveillance stage is over. Also, as this 'practical' side of things falls under the objectives of the Auror department, they are the ones who will have the right to know all of the details, our of anyone else in the Magical Law Enforcement, including myself. And I assure you, if these rules of secrecy are good enough for the Head of the Department, then they are more that sufficient for everyone else."  
A cold silence greeted the end of Crouch's response, but silently Lily agreed. No good could come of more people than was absolutely necessary knowing the details of Moody's plan.

"Now," said Crouch, packing up his documents. "There will be an additional Departmental meeting in one month's time. Until then, congratulations to those witches and wizards whose hard work has paid off, and may you continue to be an inspiration to the rest of us who also strive to protect the wizarding world from the Darkness that threatens. Auror Moody, I leave the floor to you and your team to organize the roster for this week. Anyone here who is not a member of the Auror department is to return to their desk immediately." There was a rumble of movement and noise as the large majority of people in the room stood up, talking amongst themselves about what had just happened, and slowly exiting through the double doors at the back so that they could return to their desks.

"Right", said Moody once the other members of the Magical Law Enforcement teams had left. "Down to business." Everyone around Lily shifted so that they could see Moody better, and Lily poised her quill over her notepad and focused her attention on the instructions they were about to be given.  
"This is to be a clear cut operation, we do not want any stragglers or problems with the log that you will all be required to keep. After all these months of nothing, we now finally have _something_ so I'm sure you can all appreciate how much none of us wants this to be botched up. I will expect every, single member of my team to be on time, and at their stations, fully alert when the Ministry and the wizarding community are depending on us to defend and protect them. I will not have any mistakes on my name." Lily felt like gulping, the whole ordeal was little too intense and ominous for her liking. She felt a surge of guilt wash over her as Moody's eyes had flickered in her direction at the words "on time" and felt, rather than heard, James smirk from somewhere behind her.

Coming back to the present, Lily took one of the sheets of parchment that Moody was passing around, which had the timetable for surveillance written on them. Lily glanced down at it quickly but didn't get a real chance to see much, as Moody was talking again. James had now gone up to stand directly next to Moody in front of the team, studying his timetable with a frown on his face, Lily watched him momentarily before returning her attention to Moody.

"You have all been assigned equal hours in this timetable, so I expect there to be no qualms about that either. As you will see, the surveillance begins immediately, and as I will need everyone to be on constant alert as to any changes in the roster, I have organized these wrist bands." He withdrew a small moleskin pouch from his pocket and took out a handful of small dragon hide bands with what looked like shiny, black pebbles attached to them.  
"The small stone located on each band is made of granite, and when there have been any changes to the roster, the stone will turn ice cold, so as to alert you of the changes. If anyone gets into any trouble at all whilst on surveillance duty, the stones will light up to a blinding white and you will be required to apparate as soon as is possible to the surveillance site to assist. Me, myself and I am the only person who has access to change the roster, however all of you have access to the emergency signal." Here he paused and shared a loaded look with James, who nodded grimly in response. Moody continued, "In order to alert the team of a crisis, you are to hold the stone between your thumb and forefinger of your non-wand hand, and say '_lumostella_' whilst holding your wand in the hand of the arm with the band on it. Obviously all bands are to be worn on your wand arm." There was a muttering of consent from all present in the room, and the synchronized sounds of quiet rustling as everyone tied their bands to their wrists.

There was a pause where Moody referred to his notes and muttered to himself whilst everyone examined either their timetable or their new wrist-band. Lily held the granite stone up to the light, and watched as the tiny white flecks within it caught the light and danced on the wall beside her. It was quite pretty really, and Lily couldn't help but think that it was a shame that something so nice, had to stand for something so horrible: the mortal danger that they were all putting themselves in. Lily looked up towards Moody and Potter again and saw that James was now positively glaring at the timetable in his hand, and his other hand was balled into a fist. Wondering what could possibly be the matter; Lily looked down at her own timetable and studied it properly for the first time.

At first, she couldn't see that anything was wrong at all, and she looked around at her co-workers to see what their reactions were. Dorcas had a slight frown on her face, and when she looked up at James, her frown darkened. Several of the others were nodding to themselves or passing serious looks between them and Lily, confused, decided to have another look at the timetable to see if there was anything she'd missed. It was then that she noticed something a little odd with the spacing of the shifts. There must have been a serious mistake on the timetable, as far as Lily could see. There were various points on the roster where Lily could see that there was only one person on at a time, rather than the two that were there at all other times. Lily also noticed that this didn't happen to everyone on the roster, just a few select people… and with a slight jolt of her stomach region, she realised that she was one of them. There were various half hour blocks throughout the roster where she was left on duty by herself on the north or south side of the building, whilst there would be two people on the other side. These lonely periods usually occurred between shifts of her partner, so whilst one person would finish at say 1530, the next person would be due to start at 1600. Lily felt decidedly panicked as she noted all the times that the crossovers occurred. Some of them were in the middle of the afternoon, and didn't bother her in the slightest, but some of them were at 3 or 4 in the morning! She felt exposed and worried as she frantically searched the sheet for each and every one of them, the tiny mathematical errors jumping out at her as though Moody had scrawled them across the page in multicoloured ink. Her breathing shallow in her chest, she looked up and around at them all. Potter was glowering at Moody with his timetable scrunched up in his hand, and Moody seemed to be exerting all of his best efforts to ignore him. Lily couldn't help but be slightly impressed by this, as ignoring James Potter when he was doing his best to be noticed was no mean feat.

"Now that you have your timetables and your wrist bands, I expect there to be no confusion as to the responsibilities asked of you all. You are to all record a log of any occurences that happen whilst you are on duty, and I will expect the master log, which will be located outside my office door to be updated daily. I believe that the first shift is due to start in two hours, so for those of you who have been assigned that shift, you have until then to sort out any last minute tasks here in the office, before getting yourself off to an Apparating Bay quick smart. Do I make myself clear?" There was a general murmer of assent and the rustling of paper as people put away the timetables.  
"Are there any questions?" asked Moody.  
"Yeah I've got quite a fe-"  
"Not you Potter." Growled Moody. "I'll answer yours in a minute, so you just sit tight and quit your grumbling for now." James looked positively murderous after this, and though distracted by the expression on James' face for just a moment, Lily raised her hand to ask her own question not seconds later. Moody studied her with both eyes for a few moments before sighing and saying, "Yes Evans?"  
There was a pause in which almost every head turned her way, and James' face snapped up and his eyes roved over her face, his expression totally changed. Lily swallowed and then tried to speak.  
"Um… well it could just be me… merlin knows that mathematics were never my thing…." She began, growing increasingly more nervous as everyone continued to look at her. "But, there seems to be a sort of… erm mistake on the timetable."  
"There are no mistakes Evans, I made that timetable myself." Replied Moody.  
"Well…" Lily swallowed, took a big breath and raised her voice as Moody looked like he was about to cut her off. "Well you see, with all due respect Auror Moody, I think there has been one. There are several half hour slots all throughout the roster where someone is left on their own. I don't know about anyone else here, but that doesn't seem very safe to me. Especially as that someone seems to be me, quite frequently." There was a silence that seemed to stretch on into eternity whilst Moody looked at her and everyone in the room held their breath. Lily wasn't sure if she'd over stepped the mark or not, and when Moody still didn't answer and continued to just look at her, Lily had started to think that it might be time for her to pack her bags. Finally, Moody spoke:  
"As I said before Evans, there are no mistakes. It is not my fault that we are short staffed and there aren't enough of us to cover the entire day. Count yourself lucky that I feel I can rely on you." James scowled heavily again at this, and Lily, quite thoroughly put in her place, was not sure what to say or think, so she merely nodded weakly.

"Are there any more questions?" asked Moody. No one said anything, so he rolled his timetable up in his hand and surveyed them all briefly. "Well? What are you all waiting for? Back to work." There was a scurry of movement and for a moment, Moody looked as though he was going to try and leave with the crowd, but then James placed his hand lightly, but firmly on the Auror's arm. "Just a second Mad-Eye. I want a word." Moody looked up at him, a frown on his features before turning to face him. "You know Potter, at the end of the day I am still your superior. I could get you into serious trouble for your lack of respect."  
"Everyone calls you Mad-Eye, Moody. You know that as well as I do, and if you'd ever had a serious problem with it then we both know that the Prewitt twins would have been hexed to oblivion way before now for starting that little trend. Why don't you say what you really mean, which is that you'd love to be able to be my superior in _all_ aspects of our working life, but there are some areas where we're equals and that just gets to you like a bowtruckle in the backside doesn't it." James snarled.  
"Be that as it may Potter, the wound's still fresh! Not six months ago you know!"  
"Oh cut the act Mad-Eye, and stop trying to change the subject, this is Thestral shit and you know it." James said, indicating the timetable. Moody rubbed a scarred hand over his face, sighing deeply.  
"You know I don't like it much either Potter, but Dumbledore-"  
"Oh _Dumbledore_! You know I don't give a-"  
"EVANS!" Moody barked. Lily jumped and promptly dropped her notebook that she had been fiddling with in an attempt to stall and listen to the heated conversation between Potter and Moody.  
"Er, yes?" she said timidly.  
"Don't you have some work to do?" Lily nodded meekly and left the room, annoyed that she wouldn't be able to hear the end of that little argument. What did Dumbledore have to do with the Auror department? And why was James so ridiculously angry at the timetable problem? Lily didn't like it much, but she certainly wasn't kicking up as much of a fuss as James was, and she was the one that was going to be at risk most often!

Lily sat down at her desk and twiddled her wand between her fingers, a habit she had when she was deep in thought. Perhaps it was a test; a test to see if she was worthy enough to be in the Auror department. That would possibly make sense, given that Dumbledore had been her reference for the placement. Perhaps it was a test to see whether or not she could handle the task by herself. Well Lily Evans would not be proven wrong! Lily vowed to be the best she could be, and decided that she should brush up on all her Defensive spells and possibly get some more training in Stealth and Concealment… as that had never really been her strong point. Reluctantly, she also concluded that that would mean asking Potter for help. It was widely known that he was the best trained Auror other than Moody that there was in the Department at the moment, and he had received outstanding marks in all areas of his practical examination- it had been in the Daily Prophet. Lily didn't like it, as she really didn't like spending more time with James Potter than was _absolutely_ necessary, but if this really was a test, then she was determined to pass with flying colours. As soon as she had made up her mind that she would ask him (begrudgingly) that afternoon if he would consider training her further, the door to the meeting room that the team had just exited from flew open with a loud crash. James stormed out of it, and although he didn't say a thing, his stance and the sparks that were spitting out of his wand at random said more than enough for him. Moody limped out of the doorway a minute later, barking at people to get back to work, as they had almost all stopped to watch James' progress across the office. Lily, certain that he was stalking towards his desk, hurriedly buried her nose in some documents that needed to be filed, as she was quite keen to _not_ draw his attention when he was like this. It therefore came as a bit of a shock to her when a shadow passed over her desk and James Potter's low voice said, "Evans?" Lily started and looked up at him timidly. His wand was still sparking in his hand, but his face softened as he looked at her. That was only temporary though, in a second his expression had hardened once more into one of determination and defiance.  
"Well Evans, as you know, there have been a few well covered up mistakes in the roster for surveillance and there are some of us that have been left on our own for some stretches of time." Lily nodded, trying not to shift her eyes too often to his wand that was still sparking, and therefore threatening to set her desk on fire. "As the two of us are the members of the team that seem to have these mistakes thrust upon our shoulders most often, it's my preference that we both get some hasty revision on stealth charms and defensive spells." He paused and positively glowered at her before shaking himself out of his angry stupor and, looking sheepish, changed his tact. "Um, that is to say… it's my _suggestion_. Um. If you'd like." Lily opened her mouth to reply but at that moment her desk began smoking, and there was a sudden _whoosh_ as flames raced across its surface.  
"Argh!" she yelled as both she and James leapt backwards. "_Aguamenti!_" Lily said loudly and clearly, pointing her wand at the burning furniture. A stream of water spouted out of her wand tip and began extinguishing the flames. James hastly pointed his wand at the desk as well and repeated the incantation. Flustered, Lily brushed some of her hair out of her face and looked up at James. Fortunately he had the grace to look sheepish, and he mumbled an apology.  
"That's fine." She said, watching water and ash drip off of her desk onto the carpet. Sighing, she flicked her wand and said "_Scourgify!_" and to her pleasure, most of the debris vanished. James put his wand back inside his robes and gave Lily an appraising look.  
"Well clearly we won't have to work on your charms Evans. They told me you were good, but I never realised you were a natural." Lily blushed and then mentally cursed herself for feeling flattered by James Potter.  
"Can you show me a disillusionment charm?" he asked her. Lily nodded, glad for a reason to not look at him, and then concentrating hard, she closed her eyes and tapped her own wand on the top of her head, feeling the familiar 'cracked egg' sensation trickle over her. James inspected her with the air of a farmer inspecting a cow for purchase. "Not bad Evans, not bad at all." But then he smirked and held up a telltale lock of her hair that still had a reddish tinge about it, although it had taken on the texture of the wooden cabinet behind her. "We still might need to practise though." Lily scowled and tapped her head once more, flushing again. James continued to look at her as she felt herself going redder and redder while the charm was lifted. He then smirked and brushed the back of his hand softly across her cheek.  
"This colour is very becoming on you Evans." Lily turned to look at him, all frustration momentarily gone as she saw in the shadow of his touch a reminder of what she saw in the memory at Emmeline's, and then that same something flickered in his eyes, before he too, turned bright red and then cleared his throat loudly.  
"Erm, let's start revision tomorrow night after work then shall we?"

He returned to his desk and Lily couldn't help but think that she had gotten much more than she bargained for when applying for this particular work placement.

* * *

_**AN: Hey guys, so this chapter is considerably longer for you all, I hope you like it. Sorry for the slight delay, and as always, thank you to all who reviewed **__**. You are all my heros.**_


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